January 10th, 2025

On Friday’s Mark Levin Show, as time goes by more and more information comes out about the wildfires in California and what these ideologues have done to the State. It turns out a key reservoir was empty when the Pacific Palisades fire started. Gov Gavin Newsom also cut the fire budget by $100 million last year while giving more water to tiny tribal fish. Newsom isn’t Presidential material, he’s not even Gubernatorial material. Where did the trillions of dollars go from the Inflation Reduction Act, which caused massive inflation? What was it used for? There needs to be a full criminal investigation into what happened to the Inflation Reduction Act money and a criminal investigation into what happened in California. Also, Supreme Court Justices, John Robert and Amy Coney Barrett have caused significant damage to our constitutional system, particularly concerning the supremacy clause. The supremacy clause was intended to address situations where State judges and local prosecutors use federal law against the intended purpose. President Trump is now left with appealing in the NY appellate system. If he wins, this ruling would be specific to NY only and would leave other states to act as Alvin Bragg and Judge Juan Merchan did.

Photo by David Swanson/AFP

The podcast for this show can be streamed or downloaded from the Audio Rewind page.

Rough transcription of Hour 1

Segment 1
Hello America. Mark Levin here. Our number 877-381-3811. 877-381-3811. Just a matter of time. And as time goes by, more and more information coming out. About these wildfires in California. And what these incompetent, arrogant ideologues have done to the state and the people of the state. Bombshell, Key reservoir was empty. When Palisades Fire started. Contributor Loss of homes and life. This is red state. Jennifer van la. When three 1 million gallon capacity water storage tanks and Pacific Palisades went dry Tuesday night. Firefighters were forced to abandon efforts to save thousands of homes. L.A. Department of Water and Power, L.A. DWP CEO Janis Quinones has repeatedly claimed during press conferences that her utility did everything it could to prepare for the forecasted wind event and support the Los Angeles Fire Department as it responded, but left out one key fact. The Santa Ynez Reservoir in the hills above Pacific Palisades, which holds 117 million gallons of water and normally feeds those tanks, had been drained and taken offline for repairs to its cover. Even though the state’s brushfire season was ongoing. LAPD watchdogs say. The Santa Ynez Reservoir, which holds 117 million. This reckless decision to take the reservoir offline left firefighters without sufficient water severely hindered their efforts. And they lie about it. They lied about it. The Los Angeles Times followed up on the lefty watchdog’s post, and that’s where it came from. And confirmed officials with officials that the reservoir had been drained for repairs. You don’t repair the reservoir in the height of wildfire season now, do you? The outlet also spoke to a former WPP general manager, Martin Adams, who said if the reservoir had been on line, it would have extended water pressure. He said you still would have ended up with serious drops in pressure. But would Saturday’s reservoir add help? Yes, to some extent it would have saved the day, he said. I don’t think so. Well, it would have saved a lot of houses that we do think so. And no. So. The officials haven’t said how long this reservoir had been offline. But it’s been empty for a while to return to cover. Now, Kenyans had blamed the inability to refill the tanks on excessive demand and fire conditions, preventing crews from rerouting water to refill one tank. Adams told the L.A. Times that the reservoir had been online. The demand might have been three times as high, but it wouldn’t have fully prevented the disaster. I love these lines, wouldn’t have fully prevented the disaster, but it could have helped ameliorate the problem, that’s for sure. That’s for sure. Just unbelievable. Quinones came to the L.A. Water Department in May 20, 24. Wow. Months ago from another beleaguered utility, Northern California’s Pacific Gas and Electric, replacing Adams while Adams was paid $435,000 a year. Quinones was hired in at a salary of $750,000. Are these government salaries, Mr. Muniz. Holy mackerel. At the time. L.A. City Council President Paul Krikorian said this council will be considering many, many important appointments that the mayor will be making, but very few will be as consequential as this one. Responding to criticism with a huge salary, Council member member Kevin de Leon. He’s a radical left wing kook. Said they needed to offer a competitive Sally to attract top talent. 750,000. And by the way, that doesn’t include bonuses and pensions and medical benefits and God knows what else. And a fine job they’ve done, haven’t they? Taxpayers of California screwed left and right. Has anybody heard from Schwarzenegger lately, Mr. Environment? Anybody heard from him lately? Mr. Climate Change. Does he take responsibility for any of this over the years, the years prior? I’m just curious. Are we supposed to pretend he doesn’t exist? Hmm. Or do we pretend that he doesn’t exist? But he is oddly quiet. Oddly quiet, but there’s more. Gavin Newsom. Daily Mail. Gavin Newsom cut fire budget by $100 million last year while giving more water to tiny tribal fish. It’s exactly the sort of thing Donald Trump spent talking about. And they say, Oh, this is disinformation. No, these are facts. Newsom is coming under fire for slashing California’s funding for wildlife and fights forest resiliency by 101 million less than a year before devastating fires tore through L.A.. She boy. The Democrat signed the budget cuts into law on June 2024, severing funding from seven programs focused on preventing and battling potential wildfires in the state, reports Newsweek. Cuts included a $5 million decrease to the Cal Fire Fuel Reduction teams, which included funding to pay for vegetation management work for the California National Guard. The total for the program was stripped of 129 million amid claims that the state fairly clear brush and forestry that may have accelerated the flames. Nuisance budget cuts also slashed 4 million from a far slight legacy program intended to promote management practices for landowners. It’s unbelievable. 28 million from funding for such conservative conservancies. These, they write, aimed at increasing wild resistance wildlife, wildfire resistance. A further 8 million was cut from monitoring and research programs that reportedly largely went to Cal Fire, 3 million from an interagency fast data hub. This is sound like the governor was doing all he could to deal with the. Wildfires. No, I don’t think so. Comes as Newsom has come under scrutiny. This guy is in presidential material. He’s not gubernatorial material. Trump’s call for Newsom to resign comes as the president elect pointed to Newsom’s focus on Delta smelt, a three inch fish native to Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in California. The water system used by the state to fight the wildfires that have so far burned over 10,000 buildings and killed at least 1010 people, far more than that. Struggle and in some places failed under the strain. So they didn’t put the money where they needed to. They made absolutely ridiculous decisions on that one massive reservoir. They didn’t do what they needed to do. The mayor of L.A. goes off the Garner. As part of a team that is. That is invited to go there by the Biden regime. The demand for water was so high that it wasn’t enough to refill the tanks in early Pacific Palisades. But we also know now that it was drained of 117 million gallons of water. Poor repair activity. I think a lot more is going to come out over time, don’t you, Mr. Producer? I look at this one as we pull them together. Leaked memo reveals L.A. Mayor Karen Bass demanded her fire department cut an extra $49 Billion just one week before the wildfires broke out. Writes The Daily Mail. Notice most of these stories are not being broken by our TV networks. The Washington Post, The New York Times and the other phony media. Notice that. L.A. Mayor Bast demanded her fire department make an extra 49 million a budget cuts last week, a leaked memo revealed last week. Last week. The extra cuts requested just days. By the way, that was on top of the 17.6 million that she already cut and those extra cuts requested just days before fires broke out and devastated swaths of L.A. would have shut down 16 fire stations and crippled the department’s ability to respond to emergencies. Period. Daily Mail interviewed current and former senior LAFD officers briefed on the shocking proposed cuts and exclusively obtained the memo from an L.A. Fire Department whistleblower who posts on social media under the moniker lefty Watchdog. The memo is dated January six, only a day before the devastating Palo fire started. According to the sources, it was sent from L.A. for top brass at City Hall to the fish and chips and captains. After a fraught meeting the previous Friday between Chief Christine Crowley and Mayor Bess. Wow. The document said the only way to provide a cost savings would be to close as many as 16 fire stations. This equates to at least one fire station per city council district. It’s incredible. Now, more than 54 square miles are scorched and at least five separate fires, more than 4000 homes and buildings destroyed. At least ten people dead, many more injured. It’s incredible. Some senior firefighters. Blood was already boiling when they received the note from their bosses about proposed budget slashes. They didn’t want this out. It’s an internal memo not to be distributed. One currently serving a 25 year veteran of the fire department told the Daily Mail. It comes from top brass downtown City Hall. They’re trying to allocate more money for the homeless and they need to start talking taking from everyone, rather. But we already exhausted our budget. It’s already tapped. That’s why they cut the fire academy in half so they could save more money. That’s why we’re not testing of hydrants work anymore. We’re doing everything we can to save money. They’re not. Testing of hydrants can work. They’re draining a massive reservoir. They’re redistributing money to illegals and homeless. Take it out of the fire budget. He goes on, we have fire engines. We can’t get parts for when one breaks down, we strip it of parts to put on other fire engines because we can’t buy anymore parts. If you shut down 16 stations, that’s about 750 personnel, then they expect us to take the same call volume. Yesterday we did 3800 calls, almost twice of what our daily volume usually is. We’re already shy, 200 paramedics. We’re on the verge of another 200 recording because we can not do this anymore. If we don’t work overtime, they suspend and threaten to terminate us. It’s untenable. No, no, no. It’s climate change. Says that jackass Marxist Bernie Sanders. Sources briefed on. The bass memo. First made the demand for tens of millions from cash strapped apartment in a meeting with Chief Crowley. She wanted to cut even more. One source said they asked for 49 million more on Friday. The chief said, we don’t have it. The mayor said, find it. Find it. Well, they found it, I guess. In the Ashes, Palisades and other communities. Throughout California. So this is what’s been going on now. Ask yourself this federal tax. Ask yourself this. Where did the training? And trillions of dollars, which has caused massive inflation of this country. Where did it go to fight climate change? What was it used for? Trillions of your dollars. Massive debt, massive inflation. To fight this very thing. And they’re slashing budgets. Where does the money go? One of the pockets of favorite billionaires and billionaires are went into the pockets of radical left wing front organizations. It went into the pockets of people who are creating new companies that go absolutely nowhere with your money. How many times have we seen that? There needs to be a full not investigation, criminal investigation. What happened to this so called inflation reduction money, a.k.a. climate change money? What happened? Criminal investigation into what took place here in California. Criminal. They should put together a huge task force, bring experts in. And I’m not kidding and get to the bottom of this. This is a massive scam that has resulted in the death of God knows how many. Massive destruction. There needs to be a full scale criminal investigation into the Inflation Reduction Act monies, who benefited from it and into the use of moneys. Now we can start with California. Given the devastation that’s occurred there, it looks like somebody dropped an atomic bomb. I’ll be right back.

Segment 2
So like all crackpot kook ideologues there we have Bernie Sanders. He knows nothing, but he immediately talks about global warming, climate change. As the cause of what took place. Why? Because Bernie Sanders is not interested in the truth. Bernie Sanders interested in destroying America, destroying our economic system. More massive spending and economic dislocation. He wants the country to burn. He wants the country to fail. He’s a Marxist. He’s a punk. So at Fox, Bernie Sanders takes heat for heat, rather, for blaming California wildfires on climate change. As wildfires ravage California, leaving a trail of devastation in their wake. Bernie Sanders is facing pushback for promoting climate alarmism. He asserted that climate change is real and the president elect Trump, must tackle the existential crisis. Shut the hell up, you all say. You know what? I’m sick and tired of you. What are you doing still hanging around here in Vermont? You should be in a cabin. That’s right. You should be in a cabin. Painting are doing something. They be sniffing glue. Get the hell off the public stage, you schmuck. I’ll be right back.

Segment 3
These ideologues on the left are fundamentally incapable of managing anything because if you are an ideologue. Remember, I’ve told you over the years the difference between philosophy and ideology. It ideologue is not about philosophy. Any analogue is a fanatic. Fanatic free for an agenda. And they they decide that that’s the agenda and then they try and force humanity to serve the agenda. It’s very Rousseau, Ian, if you will. And this is how you actually find liberty, don’t you? No more government. What’s best for, quote unquote, the community as determined by the Bernie Sanders types. And anything that doesn’t fit the mold is to be attacked. And wherever they have failure. Never, never admit failure. So, you know, decades and decades and decades ago, communists used to support Joseph Stalin when he was alive. When he was alive 1890 years ago. He dies. He’s a failure. And so what do they say? They say communism didn’t fail. Stalin failed. You see how it works. And so communism is okay. It’s Stalin. He was the problem. Now, of course, the fact is that communism gives rise to the Stalin’s and the Mao’s and the Xi’s and the Castros and all the murderers and all the rest. But that’s not to be ever considered because Bernie Sanders a communist. So Bernie Sanders is a tyrant. If you’re a communist, you’re a tyrant. AOC is a tyrant. If you’re a communist, you’re a tyrant. And that’s what they are. They can’t manage. They’re driving everything through the spectrum of their ideology. And so what’s the spectrum of the ideology in California of the Newsom types of their legislature, the Democrat Party, of the Schwarzenegger types? What is the ideology that they drive every decision through climate change? Global cooling global heating climate change. And so what do you have to do? Destroy private property rights. Leave it to nature. To clean up nature. It’s almost like a bizarre 19th century religion howling at the moon. Praying to Stone. That’s who they are. That’s what they are. That’s how they believe. And they’re fanatics about it. And so the consequence is what you’re seeing in California right now, the consequence will be even worse nationwide because they’re trying to strangle a starve us of gasoline and oil. They’re going to starve us of electricity. They’re going to prevent serious alternatives from actually existing while at the same time the destroying our coal mine industry. They’re destroying the nuclear industry. So where are we going to go? What are we going to have? Nothing. These people don’t develop anything. They don’t produce anything. They don’t invent anything. They don’t actually solve problems. They destroy things. And that to them is quote unquote progress. Progressivism destroying things, destroying the oil industry, destroying the the gas powered automobile. Destroy them, destroy logging and loggers and the use of natural resources. That’s the way it goes. And so you have a state like California, which really is or was the richest state in the country among the most beautiful states in the country with massive access to water. They could do desalinization like they do in Israel. I mean, there on the Pacific Ocean, they have a massive coast. Do they focus on that in any significant way, in any effective way? No, not at all. Well, what do they get from the north that comes into California or that they purchase? What do they do with it? A lot of it’s poured into the Pacific Ocean. Now, everything I’m telling you, they will dismiss as misinformation, because that’s what Marxists do. That’s what fanatics do. They’re the ones who deny science. They’re the ones who deny knowledge. They’re the ones who deny experience. And then they accuse you of misinformation and disinformation. That’s how it works. And of course, they’re incompetent. There’s a problem. Just say climate change and blame it on people who don’t agree with them. That’s it. It’s not a matter of money. Look at the salaries they’re paying these people. They’re crazy. Salaries for public officials. Three quarters of $1,000,000. And I’m not even including bonuses and medical benefits and pensions. Is that crazy? But we need a competitive price. Competitive for what? For what? Newsom has spent the last four years running for president. He runs from one state to the next. He runs to the White House, Got a lot of time on his hands as a guy when it came to the pandemic who is one of the most authoritarian tyrants of all the governors. And there were many and there were many. Because that’s all he knows is the iron fist of government. He doesn’t know how to effectively manage anything. He doesn’t know how effectively to use limited government. Look how they squander money, They squander water. They squander everything out there. That is the government. And he’s not the only one, and that’s not the only state. But the lesson here, and it’s a very important lesson among others, is this is what they’re going to do to the country. They’re going to starve, starve us of energy. They’re going to make it impossible to fight wildfires. This is what they’re doing while they get up there and talk about in really sleazy propaganda, propagandistic ways about how they are going to save the earth, how you got to follow them. Because of this existential threat. They’re the existential threat. They are. Not the average person is just trying to live their life. No, I don’t think so. Yes. He was on the phone. We played it yesterday, claiming it was trying to get Joe Biden when this woman was confronting him. Turns out he wasn’t trying to get anybody. Did you see that, Mr. Producer? Complete fake. He wasn’t calling anybody. Just trying to get rid of her. That’s what he was trying to do. Look what happened in North Carolina. You know, those people in North Carolina, the majority of them are still suffering. Still suffering. The media has lost any focus on them. They don’t care. Femur flush with a new $100 billion. There’s never going to be enough money in FEMA. The way these people in the government and state governments conduct themselves, there’s never going to be enough money. And they also use money to kind of pave over what they’ve done or failed to do. Just run around and talk about climate change. Bernie Sanders. What a buffoon. What a Marxist freak. Well, it’s true. That’s what he is. We’ll be right back.

Segment 4
Todd Blanche, lead counsel for President Trump’s really good lawyer. So really good lawyer in the courtroom today after the really bad judge, phony Judge Mershon did what he did, he made the following comments. Cut three go. I very, very much disagree with much of what the government just said about this case, about the legitimacy of what happened in this courtroom during the trial, and about President Trump’s conduct fighting this case from before it was indicted. So while it is entitled to the jury’s verdict and even. Instead, what the government just said presupposes some things that we disagree with very much, which was that this was an appropriate case to be brought. It was not this case without a doubt, knowing everything we know about the timing of the investigation, the fact that multiple prosecutors looked at the facts of this case, including the prosecutors within the district attorney’s office in New York County, and made a decision not to bring charges, as the court knows. Shortly after President Trump announced his intention to run for re-election. This case was started for what amounts to a third time, which brings us ultimately to where we are today. A lot of what the government just said presupposes that this case is legally appropriate and that the charges that were brought by the people were consistent with the laws of New York. Again, we very much disagree with that. And and as everybody has been noting, because it’s true, we certainly intend on a feeling that and it’s not, by the way, just counsel and President Trump that feels that way. There’s many, many, many legal experts. They share the same views that I just said, which is that legally this case should not have been brought forth based on the facts that were established at trial and also on the legal basis for which they were brought. But it’s also not just the legal experts, not just counsel and not just President Trump, but the majority of the American people also agree that this case should not have been crossed. I mean, the interesting thing about the fact that there was a trial for the first time in our history, a criminal trial during an election season, is that the American voters got a chance to see and decide for themselves whether this is the kind of case that should have been brought. And they decided. And that’s why in ten days, President Trump is going to assume the office of the president of the United States. And certainly we’re here for the court to sentence President Trump to an unconditional discharge. And for that, it’s a very sad day. It’s a sad day for President Trump and his family and friends. But it’s also, in counsel’s view, a sad day for this country because this was a case without a doubt, that was brought by a district attorney who promised that he would go after President Trump if elected and felt like he had to go through with that promise. And so that’s sad. And I hope and I know that President Trump shares this view that this will never happen again in this country. And so we we certainly understand where we are today. We very much intend on pursuing an appeal of this verdict and and and what happened during this investigation. And we certainly believe that the only appropriate sentence is wants to be imposed at all, which we very much believe it shouldn’t be, and that the case should be dismissed, is a sentence of an unconditional discharge. Now, I want to underscore a couple of points here. First of all, whatever you do, don’t miss life, Liberty Levin, Saturday and Sunday. I know there’s a lot of football. There’s no hiding that fact. But set your DVR, record the program. So they’re going to be very, very important on Saturday night, 8 p.m. Eastern. We have Newt Gingrich and David Schoen. And Newt and I will talk at some great length, not just about the fire, but about. Entire ideology surrounding it. And David Schoen is one of the best lawyers in the country. And Sunday. John Yoo, professor, you is absolutely fantastic. One of the great law professors and Ben SHAPIRO. Here’s my second guest. So two fantastic shows. Please set your DVR hours. I hope you’ll watch them live. But if you can’t, that’s what you have DVRs for smart TVs. You can record them other ways as well. So we look forward to that. But I’m going to spend a tremendous amount of time on this. Time, I think is well spent. And let me just say one thing. I want you to think this through with me, because you’re the smartest are smart audiences. And I want you to think this through with me. If two justices on the Supreme Court appointed by Republicans, John Roberts. And Barrett. Amy. Coney. Barrett. What they did to our constitutional system, to the federal judiciary. To. The supremacy clause, which is a key clause in the Constitution. They spent a lot of time debating it, that that language in the Constitution is actually the third iteration. I spent a lot of time studying this specific clause. Which nobody else does. They’ve done grave damage to the Constitution. They’ve done grave damage to our entire system. You know, the reason they abandoned the Articles of Confederation and created this Constitution. Was because of the confusion, actually the the anarchy. In. Who was in charge of what? Who could hold what? Who and responsible for what? The federal government at that time. Just called the national government. It didn’t have the ability to raise monies. To build up the military to pay off its debt. You had states that were taxing, taxing other states. You had a mess on your hands. The Supremacy clause in part. Just like the Constitution and its construct was intended to, among other things, fix that. So when you have a state judge and a local prosecutor. Who decide that they are going to use federal law. They hide the fact, but it’s clear as day. To get involved and interfere in a federal election for president of the United States. And even now. The appellate review is in the state of New York when these are federal matters. That does enormous damage to the Constitution and Barrett and Roberts contributed to it. Now, let me continue. Let’s say the state appellate court in New York rules that Donald Trump’s are 2% right the reverse and they dismiss. That’s great, isn’t it? But here’s the problem. That’s New York. That’s not the other 49 states. That’s not the federal system. A state appellate court has ruled that what took place. Was inappropriate, among other things. But the Supreme Court took a pass. And if Donald Trump wins at the state appellate level, the Supreme Court will never get a bite at the apple because there’ll be no reason to to seek, again, relief from the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court really, really blew it big more when I return.